


thawing's a slow thing

by windingwoods



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, FatT Femslash Week 2018, Kingdom Game, navel-gazing in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2018-07-22
Packaged: 2019-06-14 10:06:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15386424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/windingwoods/pseuds/windingwoods
Summary: It's a habit she's picked up somewhere in between becoming an agent of the Rapid Evening and having to tiptoe her way around the Candidate of Righteousness.





	thawing's a slow thing

**Author's Note:**

> this is small and i'm posting it in a rare moment of working data while not even being fully caught up on fatt as a whole but i just can't resist the call of a femslash week.
> 
> prompt: winter

It's cold, Natalya thinks, in space. It's also cold in the cockpit of a mech she's only had cursory lessons on how to fly back then, back when she wasn't an operative yet, barely a flicker in the outstretched shadow of the Golden Branch. Most of all, though, it's cold to have a metal prosthetic arm; not quite uncomfortable (their little suicide mission has better funding than that it seems, a layer of sugarcoating for the crew that feels almost distasteful to her) but kind of disorienting. Sometimes. 

"I don't understand," says Tea from where she's sitting next to her, "how the hell is it that you keep doing this." 

She punctuates her words with a grunt that's halfway to being a sigh and a click of her tongue as the wires in Natalya's metal ligaments she'd been fixing up until a moment ago finally connect again. "Seen recruits greener than that shitty broccoli surrogate they keep feeding us nowadays treating their cybernetics with more care."

The look she gives Natalya would be more than enough to make a less tired, less trained person shrink. It makes it easy to see why is Tea Kenridge the Queen on this lousy chess game of theirs, if it's ever been even remotely theirs to begin with. 

"Maybe I'm doing it on purpose." Natalya gambles. It's a habit she's picked up somewhere in between becoming an agent of the Rapid Evening and having to tiptoe her way around the Candidate of Righteousness. "Not that I'd need an excuse to hang out with you, but, still." 

She's not exactly telling the truth, she wouldn't just go breaking her new arm like an amateur simply to trick herself into thinking she can feel the touch of Tea's fingers over it, but she's not being all that dishonest either, at least not any more than usual. The way the weight of Tea's eyes shifts from annoyance to surprise is enough to make Natalya sit a little straighter in satisfaction.

"I'm a scientist," she continues, flexes her metal fingers to check they're responding correctly. "Has it occurred to you that I could fix this by myself?"

Now Tea's frowning, which, okay, was worth the shot in the dark, no matter how common the expression is on her face. 

"Not with how damn clumsy you seem to be," she retorts, piqued the way she sounds when she's chiding Jace for being too careless, and it makes a small, unprofessional part of Natalya wish for— something. Other than the cold, other than the freezing, gnawing feeling in her shoulder. 

"Point taken," she says, willing the rough edges of her voice into what she hopes is smoothness. 

Tea leans into her, for a brief moment. 


End file.
